The Secret of a Real Karate Punch!

What is Behind a True Punch!

The first time I ever actually hit someone I was shocked.
I had trained for 20 years, and I actually had no idea
what it was like to hit somebody for real.
Then I had to,
and it totally changed me.

The most important Martial Arts book ever written.

Here’s the deal:
to understand what I am about to say
you have to understand one thing:
what is a punch?

People say it is how hard you hit somebody,
they say all sorts of things,
but I haven’t heard anybody tell me the one thing
that I experienced on the day
I actually had to hit somebody.

Go on,
google it,
see if you can find out the truth
of what it is like to hit somebody.
I’ll wait…
.
.
.
.
.
Okay,
you’re back,
here’s the truth of a punch.
A punch depends on the transference of weight
from one body to the next.
It’s not how hard you hit.
It’s not how fast,
or anything else like that.
It’s how much weight you deliver.
Now,
those other things can enter the equation.
But,
the truth is…
how much weight can you put on the sucker’s body?
Can you put so much weight the other guy’s body breaks?
Can you control the weight so it is a push and not a punch?
Are you stuck in push,
instead of punch?
Does air punching really work?

Interesting questions,
especially once you have tried to do a real punch.

When I struck this fellow
I felt weight go through my wrists.
Because I was grounded he flew back,
went over a bed and hit the wall.
Thank God for grounding.
Thank God I had practiced aligning my bones,
because if I hadn’t I might have broken my wrist,
I might have flown away from that guy from my own punch!
I just didn’t understand.

BUT,
that one punch,
and I understood.
So,
try this special exercise.
We used to do it back in the sixties,
had no clue what it meant,
and it wasn’t until I actually had to hit somebody
that I understood what the drill was for.

Assume the push up position.
Go from the hands to the fists.
Just a little push,
like you’re going to clap your hands,
but then land on your fists.
Palms,
fists,
palms,
fists.

Don’t do too many at first.
Build up a little.
Do it from a knees down push up at first,
if you have to.

What happens here is that you get
the sudden shock of weight
going through your fists and wrists,
and that is what it is like to hit somebody.
A sudden shock of weight in the wrists…
and through the rest of the body.
You ground,
you root your stances,
so that you are braced upon the earth,
and he will fly away,
and not you.
You have a straight bone line in your wrists
so you can absorb the weight.

The actual weight here is going to depend on who weighs the most.
If he weighs more,
you will fly back.
But,
even if you weigh less,
if you ground,
if you are braced upon planet earth,
then he will fly away.
Or,
if you punch with speed and snap,
the impact will ripple through his body
(imagine slapping a pond of water with your hand)
and cause great damage.

Here’s a matrix Karate Kick

Try that,
adapt it to other parts of your practice,
and let me know what happens.

And,
got something else to talk about here…
new book coming out.
This one,
the working title is
‘Tiger and Butterfly’
is a condensation,
a blend,
of Matrix Karate and the Shaolin Butterfly.
The story behind it is interesting.

I walked into a martial arts school,
asked the guy if I could help,
and he said yes.
The school is pretty good.
Probably real good,
but they were teaching martial arts without forms,
specializing in freestyle.
The freestyle was,
depending on which class was taught,
points, MMA, or Jujitsu.
Quite interesting.

So I started helping,
and eventually came up with an interesting idea:
how to teach with fewer, smaller forms.
I used the shorter Butterfly forms,
and the Houses from Matrix Karate.

So far,
it is REALLY working.

Mind you,
I always advise the complete art,
in this case the complete Matrix Karate,
or the complete Shaolin Butterfly,
but considering that the school was established,
considering that I didn’t want to change things,
just enhance them,
you can understand what I was doing.

Anyway,
the book should be out in the next week or so.
Tiger and Butterfly.

It’s one of the most important books ever written.
It describes what the martial actually are,
how they are grown,
and ties together all sorts of loose ends.
It should definitely change the way
people think about the martial arts.